14-05-2025
Saint Louis School robotics team wins gold at national championship
HONOLULU (KHON2) — The robotics team at Saint Louis School celebrated its fourth consecutive win at the Vex JROTC National Championships in Dallas over the weekend.
Since the program's establishment in 2022, Saint Louis School has participated alongside approximately 70 other teams to compete for the ultimate title.
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Competitors had to navigate their robots through a complicated field, with different parts and obstacles on the field earning the team points. Each round had three students from Saint Louis School controlling their robot creation.
Everybody loves to win, but for Isaac Lau, a senior on the team set to graduate in a matter of days, the win signifies a cherry on top of his high school career.'All the hard work definitely paid off in those four years of competing, especially the last one ending on a high note being the last Vex, or any robotics tournament, that I'll be competing in high school,' Lau said. 'I'm very happy that my team got to experience this. Not just me, but we're all very happy about this tournament victory.'
The robotics team at Saint Louis pours hours of work into their efforts, with Lau's mom and Saint Louis School teacher Tatum Rathell noting that the future engineers had many late nights behind this win.
'They put so many hours into both competitions. I mean, they're there until three in the morning,' Rathell said.
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Rathell also noted the significance of a victory in robotics for Saint Louis School, considering the institution is known primarily for its athletic abilities.
'It's rewarding for many different reasons, one of them being that he took an athletic school and made it known for something else,' she said. 'And that's exciting for me.'
For Lau, the robotics team provided him with a sense of comfort when he couldn't quite 'click' with the school's more popular athletic teams.
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'When I first joined Saint Louis in the sixth grade, I was trying to look for a different passion other than sports. Sports wasn't really my click,' Lau said. I noticed that [Saint Louis] had a competitive robotics team, and I joined that team, started from there and found a passion with it.'
Lau's passion in robotics doesn't end with his high school career. The soon-to-be high school grad will continue his love for the subject in college, as he will be studying engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a robotics and engineering school in Massachusetts.
For more information on Saint Louis School's well-decorated robotics team, visit their website.
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